In the wake of Thomas Rawls' season-ending injury, the Seattle Seahawks' backfield plans are so unsettled that Pete Carroll acknowledges nobody knows how it will play out until Sunday's game starts.
"You'll find out at game time how we're going to do it," Carroll said Friday, via KIRO's Liz Mathews. "Guys really, really practiced hard this week and they know that they're competing for their playing time. It's going to be fun to see how they do."
Carroll has made it clear that veteran Fred Jackson will remain in the third-down role, leaving early-down work to be divvied up among converted fullback Derrick Coleman and a pair of backs signed off the street this week -- Bryce Brown and Christine Michael.
"I'm just trying to wait until game time so we can wait and see," Carroll continued. "All of those thoughts that you guys have are true. Everything you can possibly think of is right."
In fantasy football circles, this is known as the dreaded "hot hand" approach. The most effective of the three backs will garner the bulk of the workload.
Reading the tea leaves, local scribes suspect Brown will get the first crack at the job. As Carroll suggested, we'll have to wait until Sunday afternoon to find out if that tree bears any fruit.
